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I hope this might be of use to people trying to get BibleWorks 6 and Wine working together.

I've played with Linux, and I've even gotten Bibleworks to run under wine using the Knoppix CD. Unfortunately I've got a few other programs that lock me into Micro$oft. HOWEVER, if BW ran natively in Linux ;-) I could be convinced to move permanently.

cxOffice 3.0

Gang, just to let you know, I have tried out BW on codeweavers.com's cross-over office and it installs flawlessly. In the past cxoffice was hit or miss with BW; but anything above 2.1.1 seems to work fine; and BW with 3.0 is FAST. I'm thinking about getting it for father's day...

I am seriously considering moving my home PC (Win 95) to Linux. If it works, I will consider moving my office PC from Win 98 as a result of the report concerning BW running well with cxoffice. My question is what distribution of Linux to consider-- Susie, Mandrake, Fedora, Xandros, ???? Should I pay the bucks and buy a boxed version? What should I definitely avoid? Any help would be appreciated. Wezlo, what distro of Linux do you use and why? Are you happy with it? Thomas, you said that you got BW to work with Knoppix. Is Knoppix a distribution that can be set up as the operating system on a computer? I got the impression it was really just for demo. What M$ applications keep you from switching? I might have the same problem. What about a dual boot for those progams and just never update Windows?

Hmm... Linux Distros...

Originally Posted by united_by_truth

I am seriously considering moving my home PC (Win 95) to Linux. If it works, I will consider moving my office PC from Win 98 as a result of the report concerning BW running well with cxoffice. My question is what distribution of Linux to consider-- Susie, Mandrake, Fedora, Xandros, ???? Should I pay the bucks and buy a boxed version? What should I definitely avoid? Any help would be appreciated. Wezlo, what distro of Linux do you use and why? Are you happy with it? Thomas, you said that you got BW to work with Knoppix. Is Knoppix a distribution that can be set up as the operating system on a computer? I got the impression it was really just for demo. What M$ applications keep you from switching? I might have the same problem. What about a dual boot for those progams and just never update Windows?

Well, I've been a Mandrake user since 7.0 and I've had my ups and downs with them. I'm running 10.0 Community right now and I really like it. If I hadn't liked it, I would have switched to Knoppix or Fedora by now. You CAN install Knoppix on to the HD, there is an ever evolving script that helps you through the process. I've got a friend who's been using Knoppix for about 2 years now, he's in love with the thing. Knoppix also has a lot of community surrounding it (www.knoppix.new) which is a real plus. It's also "free as in speach and free as in beer" which is also good (but there are places to donate money to continue development, which is a good thing to do).

I wouldn't use knoppix right off the bat though. You're better off with Xandros or Mandrake. You can still download Mandrake for free, and their package manager (urpmi) is right up there with "apt" (which is a thing of beauty). If you want to get a boxed set, I'd purchase Xandros though; it's utilities are highly rated AND last time I checked their boxed set comes with crossOver Office, which can run BW! (at least 3.0 can, which is what I'm going to purchase this week).

On the other hand, Mandrake is pretty dang good, has a better community then Xandros, and mandrakeclub is actually a pretty valuable thing (I pay $120 a year for a silver membership, I've been happy). Mandrake also runs cxoffice 3.0 just fine, which is how I'm currently running BW (flawlessly, I might add; EVERYTHING works).

Thanks for the information. A local person gave me a disk of Knoppix and I have tried it a few times. I think I like Linux if Knoppix is a good representation. What I was wondering was about running BW. I started it with Wine and it seemed to run OK. I didn't really use it long, just a few sample searches, etc. I noticed your comments about CrossOver Office (which I would probably get anyway if I make the switch to see if it will run PageMaker), and I was wondering why you thought we needed CO to run BW. Are there problems I haven't run into yet? Do you know if CO will run e-Sword or Online Bible? Are you running Linux as your primary desktop? Do you run MS Windows at all? If so, what for? I wonder why Thomas Black doesn't switch? I have heard so many people say that Linux (any distro) is not ready for the desktop. The fellow that gave the Knoppix to try runs an ISP and he says he disagrees with that. He says he only runs Windows for games. All his work is in Linux. Any thoughts? What are the pros and cons of a dual boot? Thanks for any input.

why I use cxoffice...

Why do I use cross-over office? Well, I've tried various ways that are supposed to get BW to install cleanly on linux, with most of the features working. I've not been able to get them to work for some reason. With cxoffice it "just works." Links to perseus, the html help, the diagrammer, the auto-updater, etc... "just work" with no problems. It might be a TAD slower, but frankly, I haven't noticed. (BTW, in general I think BW fonts look better on linux than they do in XP with clear-type enabled...)

I've been using Linux as my only desktop OS for just over 2 years, and linux as my primary for over 4. I love it.

I am seriously considering moving my home PC (Win 95) to Linux.
... Thomas, you said that you got BW to work with Knoppix. Is Knoppix a distribution that can be set up as the operating system on a computer? I got the impression it was really just for demo. What M$ applications keep you from switching? I might have the same problem. What about a dual boot for those progams and just never update Windows?

First, I am sorry for the long delay, I've been in Haiti for almost a month.
It looks like your Knoppix question has been answered already so I won't touch it again.
Currently their are three reasons I'm not switching to Linux completely for now, and they are in no particular order.

Bibleworks. It can run on Linux, but it runs stable on XP.

Libronix. It's so heavily dependant on IE that Linux would IMHO make it wasted money.

Drivers for my Laptop. Yes I know that such can be hacked away at. But I've come to value my time far to much to spend much time hacking away.

I'm in the process of de-geeking myself so to speak. I just haven't got the time or urgency to keep wasting the time I've been given on what other people can do for me, and do better than I can. So my next computer which is 3-4 years away might be a Linux box, and my son's computer is already Linux-From-Scratch (LFS) linux box; but for right now I have a machine with XP that runs great for now.

cx office pro + debian

Originally Posted by wezlo

Gang, just to let you know, I have tried out BW on codeweavers.com's cross-over office and it installs flawlessly. In the past cxoffice was hit or miss with BW; but anything above 2.1.1 seems to work fine; and BW with 3.0 is FAST. I'm thinking about getting it for father's day...

For about a year now, I've been running BW5 under VMware Workstation 4.0 on a Pentium system with Debian (2.4 kernel). The arrangement has been serviceable, though leaving something to be desired. Before settling on VMware, I also tried Win4Lin (it did not work), TightVNC (it worked, but the response was maddeningly sluggish), and CodeWeavers CrossOver Office Pro 2.0 (it did not work).

I recently reinstalled Debian (using the new "Sarge" installer), and subsequently upgraded to "unstable" and the 2.6 kernel, whereupon I discovered that VMware would not install; kernel 2.6 is not yet supported by VMware. So I tried a demonstration download of CrossOver Office Pro 3.0, and was able to get BW5 working, without difficulty; this was about two weeks ago. For various reasons, I decided to begin the Debian installation afresh, and now I am unable even to install BW5 under CrossOver Office Pro 3.0 -- "Install Shield" appears, and then I see a window which is solid black, labeled "C:\PROG~FBU\COMM-GP\INST~JM1\Engine\6\intel 32\Kernel.exe"; and in the process, the desktop (Gnome) may lock up. If anyone has a solution or recommendation, kindly email me at rlharris@hal-pc.org.

While a BW port to Linux would be ideal, a good immediate solution would be for BW simply to conform to the WINE guidelines for Windows applications.

UPDATE (three LONG hours later) --- SUCCESS!

The problem turned out to be that DCOM98 (and perhaps also DCOM95) had not been installed. The installation menu of CodeWeavers CrossOver Office Pro 3.0 lists DCOM95 as a supported application, so I asked CX to install DCOM95, which it did. A subsequent attempt to install BW5.0 then appeared to progress normally until a dialogue box appeared:

<BibleWorks will now run a Microsoft program to see if your system has the files necessary to run HTML Help. You should answer YES if asked whether or not you want to install HTML Help.>

However, upon clicking OK to proceed, the installation appeared to hang. I utilized the FORCE QUIT applet of Gnome to regain control of the desktop, and then, on a hunch, I downloaded DCOM98.exe directly from the Micro$oft web site, and then I instructed CX to install DCOM98.exe as an unsupported application, which it did. Finally, I instructed CX to install BW5.0. This time, the installation progressed to completion. After the test regarding HTML Help, a dialogue box appeared. At the end of the installation, a dialogue box informed me that installation was complete, and requested permission to restart the (virtual) computer. BibleWorks 5.0 appears to be functioning normally, and I am elated at last to be free of the VMware environment.

I may uninstall CX and repeat the entire installation, to see whether it is necessary to install DCOM95; perhaps DCOM98 is all that is required.